Ireland Squad for EuroHockey Championships Announced

Ireland hockey coach Andrew Meredith has today announced his squad for the TriFinance EuroHockey Championships August 17th - 25th in Belgium.

Ireland will face some of the world's best in this tournament with three of the top four ranked countries in the world competing. Ireland (15) in Pool B will come head to head with The Netherlands (3), Poland (20) and England (4) while Pool A is comprised of Germany (1), Spain (6), Belgium (9) and the Czech Republic (21).

Commenting on the impending tournament coach Meredith said "I would expect that Belgium coming off their World League 3 win, and as hosts in front of 8000 of their own spectators, to be considered the marginal favourite, but recent strong performances from Germany and a now full strength Holland will make it a pretty interesting tournament."

Meredith went on to talk about Ireland's group "Our focus is of course on the group stage. We begin with the highest ranked opponent in our pool in Holland and have a must win game against Poland. We have drawn England as our final group game, which you can imagine with the competitive group of athletes we have, are immensely excited about the real opportunity and challenge this game presents, particularly given some of the great potential we showed with an inexperienced new group in Hamburg, against a very similar English side."

Meredith's side has been bolstered by the return of the experienced Eugene Magee, Bruce McCandless, Mitch Darling and the young Peter Brown who were unavailable for Ireland's last major tournament World League 3. Meredith's selection sees a mix of young talent combining with the world class skill and leadership of the Green Machine's more experienced players.

Player / Club / Caps
1.Jonny BELL (Lisnagarvey) 23
2.Peter BROWN (Banbridge) 11
3.Chris CARGO (Reading) 77
4.Peter CARUTH (Braxgata) 73
5.Stephen COLE (Monkstown) 4
6.Mitch DARLING (Three Rock Rovers) 101
7. David FITZGERALD (Monkstown) GK 18
8.Kyle GOOD (Monkstown) 15
9.Ronan GORMELY (Krefeld) 172
10.Conor HARTE (SCHC) 118
11. David HARTE (Kampong) (GK) 117
12.John JACKSON (Braxgata) Captain. 127
13. Stuart LOUGHREY (Team Bath Buccaneers) 40
14.Eugene MAGEE (Krefeld) 168
15.Bruce McCANDLESS (Banbridge) 50
16.Shane O'DONOGHUE (UCD) 34
17. Kirk SHIMMINS (Pembroke Wanderers)
18.Michael WATT (SCHC) 132

Match Schedule - Ireland:
Sunday 18th August Ireland v Netherlands 18.00 (Local Time)
Monday 19th August Ireland v Poland 16.00 (Local Time)
Wednesday 21st August Ireland v England 11.30 (Local Time)
Full Match Schedule
http://www.trifinanceeurohockey2013.be/index.php?websitestructid=98
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